got a lot to learn about Wade Garrett, girl. He never breaks a promise.” Ursula laughed with sardonic humor. “You got a lot to learn about working a ranch, too. If he sold that land, he’d lose his water rights.”
Rachel glanced at the faucets on the sink. “But you have water.”
“Without the river, Wade couldn’t water his cattle or the tree seedlings he’ll be planting soon. So without the river frontage, he might as well sell the whole kit and caboodle.”
“Is Dad gonna sell the ranch?” a high, thin voice behind Ursula asked. “It’s my fault, isn’t it?”
Ursula swiveled in her chair, allowing Rachel a view of a small boy standing in the doorway, his eyes red and swollen and his sooty cheeks tracked with tears. Even if she hadn’t known who he was, she would have recognized Jordan as a startling miniature of his father, less muscular and self-assured, but with the same heart-stopping good looks that would one day drive women wild.
For now, he was a very frightened and unhappy little boy. Despite her act of bravado over her lost memory, Rachel knew exactly how he felt.
“Come in and meet Rachel,” Ursula said.
The boy hunched his thin shoulder to wipe his face on the sleeve of his T-shirt, and approached Rachel as if he had lead in his sneakers. The loneliness in his big brown eyes stabbed at her heart and mirrored her own.
“Hello, Jordan. Your daddy’s told me lots about you.”
“He did?” His gamin face brightened at the mention of Wade.
“You bet,” Rachel said. “From what I can tell, you’re the most important person in your daddy’s whole world.”
A transforming smile filled with the innocence and hope of childhood swept across his face before the sadness returned. “Not anymore. Not after today.”
“Everybody makes mistakes, Jordan. Even if your father is angry at what you’ve done, he still loves you.” Rachel reached out and grasped his shoulders lightly.
For one small instant, the boy looked as if he’d like to throw himself into her arms. Then his expression hardened, and he jerked from her grasp. “He just wants me to stay out of trouble and out of his way.”
Across the table, Ursula raised her eyebrows and flashed Rachel a knowing look that said, See what you’re in for?
Rachel understood loneliness and fear. She’d had her fill of both the last two weeks. But she was an adult and, even without memories, more equipped to deal with life than this small boy, trying so hard to be brave. Her heart ached for him.
He headed toward the door, then turned back with a suspicious glare. “Are you going to live here?”
“I don’t know.” She told the truth, not only because he deserved it, but because he’d know if she lied. “I haven’t decided yet.”
“Guess you don’t want to be around a kid who causes so much trouble.” His narrowed eyes and the aggressive jut of his chin dared her to disagree.
She rose to the bait with honesty. “If I do stay, you’ll be the main reason.”
“Me?” Astonishment replaced his pugnacious look.
“You.” The smile of warmth and approval she gave him originated deep inside. “I think I’m going to like you very much.”
Grinning as if she’d given him a priceless gift, Jordan turned and rushed out the door.
A FEW HOURS LATER, with Band-Aids plastered on her cuts from the potato peeler, Rachel crossed the grassy back lawn and followed a dirt track toward the barn. The Forest Service firefighters and volunteers had already gathered at makeshift picnic tables on the side lawn and helped themselves to Ursula’s grilled steaks, mashed potatoes and fresh-picked salad. When she and Ursula had served the apple pies and Wade still hadn’t appeared, Rachel had gone in search of him.
She found him at a large washtub beside the barn, stripped to the waist.
He dunked his head into the water just as she approached, and the broad, smooth muscles of his back glinted golden in the last rays of the sun as it dropped behind the mountains. He pulled his head from the water and whipped his streaming hair back from his face, radiating strength and virility like the sun projects light.
At the sight of him, she wondered anew why every unattached female in the county wasn’t set on marrying him. He’d said he wouldn’t marry a local girl because of Maggie’s memory, but had refused to elaborate. His unspoken anger at the mention of Maggie’s name suggested his reluctance had nothing to do with honoring Maggie’s memory. But what else it could be was a mystery. If Wade wouldn’t tell her, maybe Ursula would.
Still, it was a shame some woman couldn’t wake up every morning to those seductive brown eyes, closed now as he groped along the bench beside the tub for his towel.
She scurried forward and grabbed the cloth, which had fallen into the dirt. Flicking it clean, she thrust it into his hands. He dried his face before opening his eyes.
“Thanks.” He toweled his hair, seeming unsurprised to find her there.
She averted her eyes from his bare chest and muscled arms and gazed instead over the adjacent field of tall grass that stretched toward the river. But looking away didn’t prevent the scent of spicy soap and a faint whiff of wood smoke from reminding her of his presence.
His deal with her was only business, she reminded her mutinous senses.
“You had supper?” he asked.
“The others are almost finished, but I was waiting for you.”
“Why?”
At the surprise in his tone, she wheeled to face him. “I want to talk to you about Jordan.”
He shrugged into a clean denim shirt and began fastening the buttons. “What about him?”
She’d spent a half hour with the boy while he picked at his supper and cast anxious glances toward the barn in anticipation of his father’s return. “He’s scared to death.”
Finished with his buttons, Wade turned his back, a small concession to modesty, unzipped his jeans and tucked in his shirt. The intimacy of standing with a man she barely knew as he bathed and dressed in the gathering twilight would have unnerved her more if she hadn’t been so concerned for the boy.
He zipped his jeans and swiveled to face her. “Jordan doesn’t have anything to be scared of.”
She wanted to shake Wade as, without a clue to his son’s torment, he calmly rolled up his sleeves. “He’s scared to death of you.”
He flinched as if she’d struck him. “Me? That’s ridiculous.”
“Is it?” She had learned a lot from the boy in her short interval with him. “When did you last spend any time with him?”
“I can’t be everywhere. I’ve been at the hospital with you for almost two weeks.”
Lucky
